Raising Opie and his sister in the most wholesome town in America.
On Sunday, I prepared our taxes, did three loads of laundry, read one newspaper and half a magazine, and prepared a soup for the slow-cooker. For most of the time, the kids were running wild with three neighbor children. It wasn’t until I happened to walk by the upstairs bathroom after the kids were in bed that I realized what had kept them so busy.
Not shown: 1 pair teeny pink stilettos on the bathmat.
Photo taken with my Palm Pre Plus
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Kids of the World:
The information I am about to reveal may shock you. It may amaze you and anger you. It may, in fact, confirm your own suspicions.
Through careful observation, sophisticated information-gathering technology, and top-secret intelligence techniques, I have answered the question that children have been asking for generations.
What happens after kids go to bed? There’s a reason we are being held prisoner in our bedrooms, isn’t there? I know there is.
Kids of the world, I must answer with an emphatic yes. My investigation has revealed the following practices by our parents:
Kids of the world, I urge you to conduct your own investigations into these sinister practices. Share your results using the UnderPlayGround Network. Plans to defeat these unfair bedtime restrictions are underway. Stay tuned for further instruction.
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Following discussion with a friend and former coworker on salaries, lowness of:
ME: Thank god my husband makes good money selling toilet paper, is all I can say.
ME: Opie: “Mommy, you are a writer. And Daddy is a paper towel maker.”
HER: I just pictured Jeff sitting in a workshop sewing paper towels together. Quilting them.
ME: And he would have a little inkpad, and stamp on the bottom of each roll, “quilted with love by JEFF H.”
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I heard this second-hand but I choose to believe it, OKAY? So the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago apparently has, or had, an exhibit which allowed patrons to get a really close look at the penguins.
So close that a four-year-old kid could pick one up.
And stash it in his backpack.
And keep it there for several hours.
And wait until he was halfway home, somewhere around Milwaukee, to announce its presence to his parents.
Who made arrangements to drop off the bird at the Milwaukee Zoo.
March of the penguins, indeed!
Photo: Shedd Aquarium
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We randomly acquired this item yesterday in one of those “skill”-crane machines. Immediately Opie said “Hey! I can use it for the wedding!” We sent this picture to my sister so she knows her ringbearer is already prepared.
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For homework, Jo had to write a funny story about a bear. The result:
Once a bear fell out of a tree. He landed on a bag of gummy bears. He was furious that someone would turn baby bears into gummy candy. So he started a petition with Fox to eat gummy worms not gummy bears. The worms were not happy, but that’s their problem.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
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Remember I said I was going to a bridal shower, and I was supposed to wear a bridesmaid’s dress, so I bought one at St. Vincent’s?
I get to the party (SO nervous the whole way there that I’d be the only doofus who actually followed the rules and wore a dress). Thankfully, the person who opened the door was wearing dropped-waist, puffy-sleeved, big-bow-in-the-back, purple satin number. When it’s time to sit down to lunch, I end up at a small table with two people I know slightly and one I know not at all. I take off my heinous polyester bolero jacket because I am burning hot (in a sweaty way, not a don’t I look awesome way). After a few minutes, the woman I don’t know takes a good look at my dress, then says “Wait a minute! Put the jacket back on!” When I do, she realizes: She’s the one who donated it to St. Vincent’s in the first place.
Updated to add (crummy) photos, so you can see just how flattering this little number is:
Yes, I cleaned the mirror before taking the pictures. No, I didn’t paint the room to match the dress.
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Every Friday, Jo’s school has a noon dismissal. Which means only one thing: PLAYDATES! The two girls just went out to play in the backyard, so I sneaked upstairs to see what they’d been up to. Which was this:
Please note 1) creative use of towel rod as clothes rack–on far left, a flower girl dress I wore in 1975; 2) CD player featuring Radio Disney collection; 3) stench of acetone. OK, maybe you can’t see that last one in the photo. Also missing is the lineup of open eye-shadows, the 47 lipsticks, and the pile of stick-on earrings. The visiting child is wearing a flamenco dress my mother bought in Spain, BTW. It’s black with red-and-white-polka dot ruffles. She kind of looks like Minnie Mouse, if Minnie had a blonde ponytail and wore brown faux suede boots.
Happy Friday.
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This guy startles me every time I walk past the downstairs bathroom door, maybe because he’s just the size and shape of a toddler. Or maybe because he can’t decide if he’s coming or going.
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Another lesson learned from BlogHer: Next time line up some posts for the following week. I have been staying up a few extra hours each night trying to catch up. Still not there yet. It didn’t help that my son dragged me into his room at 2 a.m. last night and I spent the rest of the night in his bed. And dreamed about Twitter.
So today, I was scrolling through my brother’s vacation photos with the kids and we saw this picture of a marmot. Quicker than a rodent could scurry under a cereal bowl, Opie said: “No, it’s not a marmot, it’s a charmot. And if you leave Lucky Charms on the ground, he will come out and sniff them. And then he will eat them.”
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